Dreamer's Requiem
by InkWorthy
Summary: Post-2 and Pre-3. Kirsty finds herself in a lucid dream with someone she'd thought long gone. Unbound Pinsty. Do not read if under 18.
1. Chapter 1

She was dreaming; she knew she was dreaming because there was no box, there were no chains, but the air tasted unfamiliar and she did not recognize this room. Kirsty sat up in the bed - soft and welcoming - and looked down at herself. These weren't her normal pajamas; instead of a t-shirt she was wearing a long white gown that almost trailed the floor, in stark contrast to the black and blue-black sheets of some fine, lustrous material. She felt out of place amongst the dim candlelight, the dark iron-wrought chandelier that gleamed silver in the blue-white of the flames, the gray brickwork on the walls adorned with delicate black chains.

She did not recognize this room, but Kirsty had one idea as to its purpose and, more importantly, its owner. But that was impossible.

"Kirsty."

he was standing outside the doorway; for a second she saw only his silhouette, but it was impossible to mistake the halo of pins crowning his head as the Cenobite Prince stepped into the light. How dramatic, how exactly like she remembered him. Kirsty swallowed.

"You were dead," she whispered, and he smiled.

"I was indeed. May I come in?"

_I'm pretty sure it's your room, _she managed to think through the swirling shock and emotion bombarding her mind, but Kirsty nodded and slipped off the bed. She took a few steps closer and stopped a foot away, as did he. His skin looked icy in the light, and something in his eyes wasn't the way she remembered them.

"Are you real? I - I'm dreaming right now, but..."

"You think your own mind conjured me." She nodded. "You did not, Kirsty. I am as much the dreamer here as you are; and if I was somehow called to you, then you were just as much called to me." It was his voice, his words, clear and concise and not the angry version that haunted her guiltiest dreams. Kirsty swallowed, nodding again, and managed to find her words.

"I'm sorry," she said, and his expression shifted. "You... you died for me and Tiffany, after I gave you that picture, I'm so sorry-"

"You do not need to apologize." He held a hand to her and Kirsty felt herself reach for it; the Prince leaned forward to kiss the back of her own, and she let out a breath. "It was my choice. I would do it again."

"I don't want you to." It was out before she could stop herself, and he looked up at her almost with surprise; Kirsty stepped a bit closer, not knowing why. "Once was... more than enough." Part of her was afraid, even with his words, that this wasn't real. His hands closed around hers and he studied her eyes; she could almost sense him peering into her thoughts, looking for something. But what?

"Isn't that the question." Called it. He smiled. "I am as alive as you are now, you should know, not a phantom." She actually felt a wave of relief at that, but once again confusion took over, and her brow furrowed.

"How?" She asked, voice soft, and his other hand closed over the one holding hers. "I saw you... all of you." He was cold, but not stiff; the leather on his thumb was surprisingly warm as her traced over her skin.

"It was not our time," he said, "and the Labyrinth's power is sometimes unpredictable." She must have still looked confused. "I _did _die, Kirsty, but I was restored to life."

"But what _happened?" _Kirsty shook her head. "The Labyrinth brought you back - I thought the entity here was called Leviathan? Or are they separate? How did it-they- how would anyone _know_-"

"Kirsty, Kirsty." He squeezed her hand before finally letting it go, and she swallowed, mind still reeling. "This is but a dream. There is time to explain," he looked around the room, "but I can assure you that I am real, and alive, and here as much as you are. You do not need to be so concerned." _But you **died** for me,_ she thought, but nodded nonetheless.

"How long does this last?" It was a clear question, the first grasped in a myriad of thoughts that were still struggling to align themselves. He turned his head, expression thoughtful, and nodded almost to himself.

"If I remember correctly, most dreams last for half an hour, perhaps a little less." He looked at her, and was something off about his eyes? "But I doubt the time within the dream runs the same as time without."

"So we could be here for a lot longer." That got him to smile, his hands folding behind his back.

"Indeed." He turned to the door. "Perhaps we can make something interesting of it. There is more beyond here; I awoke in a room such as this one, if that is the correct word for it."

"You know as well as I do." She looked to the door for the first time; shadows stretched at its edges, but she did not see anything beyond, or hear anything peculiar. 'What's out there?"

"I believe that is for us to find out." He started for the door, then paused and offered his arm. "Shall we?" Kirsty stared at it for a moment; who knew what could be out there, after all she'd seen the first time? But it was a dream; she had to be safe in her dreams, or at least she hoped she did. She nodded, and after a moment reached for him, pulling herself closer than she'd expected.

"Alright."

* * *

_Getting all the drafts out now while the writing muscle is cooperating with me. This is gonna be another multi-part thing; what can I say, I had the itch and this has been sitting in my drafts since around the same time as I started Rapture, which I'll try to get done soon. _

_I don't know why I like having them go on walks either._

_Let me know what you think, and be kind!_


	2. Chapter 2

This was not the Labyrinth as she remembered it.

The first time she had run down halls of stained concrete and narrow pathways that peered over a depthless abyss; they twisted and turned on sharp corners, and she'd imagined one could get lost forever in that place, dreamt of wrong turns and rooms of tempting and terrible things. As she gripped his arm, however, Kirsty wondered that while this world was familiar, it did not fit her memory.

"We are in a place between places," he said, the first thing spoken by either of them since they'd left the room, "a meeting between Earth and the Labyrinth."

"It feels closer to yours than mine," Kirsty said, craning her neck up. No floating god, but she imagined if she squinted that she could see something almost like a ceiling, if it wasn't just a dark sky. "I can't remember ever seeing anything like this." The whole world seemed bathed in a blue so strange that it looked white head on; but even the shadows they cast were dark blue, rather than the black she was used to from her own sun. The walls too had a hint of shine; metal, dulled with age and coated in a dark patina, small cracks in the surface catching the light. They curved, as well; as the Labyrinth had been rigid and sharp in its corners, this place seemed almost devoid of them, each turn smooth and the paths winding every which way.

"Do you like it?" He asked it so easily that it almost didn't sound odd. Kirsty looked around again - at staircases spiraling into nothing and reliefs on the walls so large she couldn't see the whole image.

"It's... interesting," she finally said, not sure what the honest answer was, "like one of those drawings of impossible structures." She wasn't sure where to look; while the walls enclosed to something more contained than the Labyrinth, she could still see steps leading down to some shadowy floor, and up towards an impossible lightless sky that she still somehow saw. "Have you been here before?"

"Not this place, no," he responded, not nearly so distracted as she, "though I have studied the existence of places such as these. They are rather easy to find, once one knows what to look for, what best suits their desires." The walls appeared to be moving, almost breathing, but that might have been a trick of the strange light.

"So it doesn't play by the same rules as Earth," she said, looking at a relief in the far distance; the vague silhouette of a woman. "...but not the Labyrinth, either." He looked at her in interest, and Kirsty felt his eyes before she looked up to meet them. His expression was bemused, and almost gentle, even if it was a bit alien on his gridded face.

"And what do you know of the Labyrinth's rules, Kirsty?" She looked away, feeling rather foolish; of course he'd know them like the back of his leather-bound hands. "I ask sincerely, it is rare to get an outside perspective of one's own world."

"Well," she started, looking out to the winding paths ahead, "this feels more... grounded. The Labyrinth... shifted, moved itself around. Nothing felt fixed, like... I could run down a hallway, turn away from it, and somehow find myself in the same hallway. Things were where they wanted to be... where the Labyrinth wanted them to be." She let the words hang in the air for a second, waiting for a response. Nothing. She looked up at him.

"Go on," he said, again with that gentle tone.

"The rooms... reflected me," she continued, thinking about her mother's photo and her childhood living room, "and the people in them. Tiffany, Julia..."

"...and Frank." No inflection one way or the other this time; just fact. She nodded.

"It felt like the rooms... they didn't exist when nobody was in them." She swallowed, not looking at him again, not sure she wanted to see his reaction. "Like they didn't... like they needed something to reflect."

"And here?" Her hand was on his arm, and now she felt his hand over it, his palm cold on the back of her fingertips. She didn't pull away, even if she squeezed a bit in response. Kirsty looked around, drinking it in.

"It's..." she turned to face the wall that he stood closest to, the same stained material and slowly being overcome with climbing vines. They were green at first glance, but Kirsty could see their translucence and the patina beneath, and the tiny red vessels running up and down each vine. They pulsed silently to a steady and uncanny pace. "more... organic. Time didn't feel like it passed there. This place... I'm still trying to make sense of it, but I think I could, eventually."

"Would you want to?" Now she finally faced him fully, and she could not read his face; he was just looking at her, but he wasn't frowning, even if he wasn't smiling either. Just staring with some intent she couldn't read, couldn't grasp.

"...I don't know," she finally answered, "I still barely know anything about it." There was no light in his eyes, not even her reflection; just irises dark as pitch that were trained on her and utterly indecipherable. He looked away from her, towards the gaps in the floor that opened up to the dark abyss below.

"I see," he said, and for a second Kirsty wondered if he would let go. He didn't, though, and looked down to her once more. 'What would you like to know, then?"

"...Where did you come from?" He raised his brow at the seemingly obvious question, and she shook her head. "Not the Labyrinth. When you wok- when the dream started, you said you were in a room like mine. Where was that?"

"Ah." He turned his head, and she saw the corner of his lip twitch upwards as he found what he was looking for. "This way," he said, and started walking again, and as he did Kirsty stepped closer to his side to keep up. The vines sprawled up the walls and reliefs of men and women trapped in stone, their soft pulse humming through the air.

* * *

_So some people noticed I took down Hallowed. ... It wasn't good. i went back and re-read it and it just was not what I wanted the story to be. I'll go back and re-write it eventually, but it just lacked the push-and-pull I wanted. I'm hoping to get more here as this goes on, so I can get some actual erotic tension going. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of the piece so far. I'm really enjoying the development of this dream-world. _

_Stay kind, everyone!_


	3. Chapter 3

The walk was both too long and too short; it felt like only a few steps carried them forward, but the silence that stretched between footfalls was almost deafening to Kirsty. He was being silent again. She didn't know what to do with silence, especially knowing that his world _wasn't _so quiet, that he could hear her thoughts as if she'd spoken them. He at least did not acknowledge it again, which she appreciated, and the brief eternity came to a stop at another door like hers.

The door was overgrown with more vines, though these were thicker and bluer than those that she'd seen before, thin lines of red tapering over them. The door itself was ornate and heavy, and Kirsty could see it was sculpted.

It was a smaller version of the reliefs on the walls; Kirsty could make out the bust of a woman, upside-down, emerging from the stone and gripping her shoulders, her expression one of either exquisite torment or desperate rapture. She almost flushed at the display; there was nothing explicit about it, but the image was still evocative of something sensual, something intimate beyond her understanding.

To her immense relief, there were no remarks on her reaction; the Cenobite simply raised his hand and turned his palm to the doorway, and the relief pulled back into the darkness. Like an exhale, a gust of cool air hit her face, stirring a curl that had fallen close to her eye.

"That doesn't look like a bedroom," Kirsty said, and as she spoke she thought to herself it was a ridiculous thing to say. The darkness stretched further in, as did the strange flora, and she could see the distant light of candles, flames white and ghostly. She was reminded of a monastery more than anything else, trying to make out detail in stonework and shadow.

"I have been sleeping... for far longer than you have, Kirsty," he said, and she looked back at him. He looked thoughtful, expression one of quiet as he looked into the room. "and what started as a room similar to yours has become something I am still exploring. There has been more time to expand the space, to test the dream's potential."

"But you're not dead," she said, and he nodded.

"I am not dead." Was that a smile? It was a suggestion of a smile, Kirsty decided. "No doubt the original chamber is still somewhere in there, but I wandered from it long before I found these stone halls. No doubt it has continued to grow in my absence." Kirsty briefly imagined her own dream-room, and wondered if it wouldn't be overgrown by the time she returned to it, if she did. "There is time yet, Kirsty, you just might." _Damn it. _"Do you wish to see what it might become?"

Kirsty looked back to the doorway, to the spectral white in the distance, the light dancing across stone paving the ground before them. Something in the darkness moved, or might have, or it could have been the dancing flames. Without meaning to, she squeezed his arm a bit tighter. She felt it shift closer to him.

"...Okay," she said, "as long as we can get back. How deep does this room go in?"

"I truly do not know," he said, "but perhaps a tether would serve the both of us well." His free hand moved and suddenly held something; a candelabra coated in the same dark patina, so green it looked almost like moss. From its base extended a thin chain, which fell to the ground and snaked behind them, over the edge of the ground and into the depths of this pseudo-Labyrinth below. Its light was pale and warm, and Kirsty felt its comforting glow brush her cheek. "Shall we begin?"

"We shall," she said, and there was that smile again. They stepped forward, and the door slammed shut behind them. Kirsty jumped, her gaze flying from the door to him.

"There is nothing to fear, Kirsty, this place cannot contain you. So long as you can wake, you can leave." they began to walk, and he gestured with the candelabra. "Look."

It took a moment's hesitation, but she did look; and as the pale light of the silver candles brought the world into focus, she suddenly understood what he'd meant by the dream _expanding._

The stone itself seemed to grow; it was not orderly tiles but rounded boulder-shapes, smaller stones crammed into the spaces the larger ones could not fill. The further in she moved - for it was a long hallway that seemed to lead to more hallways - the tile grew less erratic and more orderly. The walls around them were lined with wall-mounted candelabras, but they almost seemed organic, sprouting in erratic order out of the walls in wrought iron branches, the melted wax dripping down the sides and the flames gleaming against their surroundings. The ceiling was masked by a canopy of chandelier chains, intertwined and knotted overhead like spiderwebs. Actual chandeliers seemed to be lost in their workings, tangled and tilted and partially lit. Wax dripped to the stone floor.

"Wow." They reached the end of the hallway, and Kirsty found they were now at the meeting point of a great many halls that extended in all directions. The chandelier at the epicenter was undisturbed by the chaos around it, but stray and broken chains hung off its supports like strange viscera. "Where do we go now?"

"Wherever we choose," he said, and he seemed undisturbed by the subtle chaos of the dream-temple. "Each of these paths leads to different dreams; some memories, some born of nothing concrete. I have not yet explored them all." Kirsty's eyes travelled over each one, and she spotted a mark on one of the stones; a thin scratch over the stones in front of certain hallways, including the one they'd just come from. Each one was a deliberate, thin line, almost as if made with a nail-

Ah.

"How about... that one, then?" She gestured to one that was unmarked; the Cenobite looked down at her and nodded.

"As you wish." They continued on, and Kirsty heard a faint, resonating sound up ahead, like bells.


End file.
